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Saina, Sindhu, Srikanth enter World Badminton Championships quarters

Blog by: Suryakant Tripathi

Olympic silver medalist PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth stood just one step away from grabbing a medal each at the World Badminton Championship after entering the quarter-finals of the singles events on Thursday.

Sindhu, who twice won a bronze medal at the 2013 and 2014 editions, survived a scare against Hong Kong’s Cheung Ngan Yi before prevailing 19-21, 23-21, 21-17 in a thrilling women’s singles match that lasted an hour and 27 minutes.

The 22-year-old Indian fought back from 13-16 down in the second game after losing the first to eventually come up trumps. She will face fifth seed Sun Yu of China next.

Srikanth, however, eased into the quarter-finals with yet another straight-game win over Denmark’s Anders Antonsen in men’s singles.

On a 12-match winning streak, Srikanth knocked out World No. 18 Antonsen 21-14, 21-18. The World No. 10 Indian will clash with top seed and World No. 1 Korean Son Wan Ho in the quarter-finals.

Saina Nehwal beat Sung Ji Hyun of Korea 21-19, 21-15 to become the first woman to reach the quarter-finals at seven successive World Championships.

Later in the day, B Sai Praneeth and Ajay Jayaram, however, suffered contrasting defeats to crash out of the tournament.

Praneeth fought hard before going down 21-19, 10-21, 12-21 to World No. 4 Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei, while Jayaram, who had disposed of The Netherland’s Mark Caljouw on Wednesday, was no match for two-time defending champion Chen Long of China as he lost 11-21, 10-21 in 41 minutes.